Weiss: The critical importance of unity

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Rabbi Avi Weiss

There is a common thread throughout the Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret, Hoshana Rabbah and Simchat Torah festivals – a thread that binds our people.

Note the four species we take as the Sukkot holiday begins. Each represents a different kind of Jew. But for Rabbi Jacob Riemer the most important part of the lulav and etrog is what he calls the thingamajig, or the agudah, the strip that binds the lulav together. Without that strip a lulav and its parts would separate, making it impossible to take as one as described in the Torah.

Hoshana Rabbah adds a similar dimension. After all, of all the species the arava seems least important. It is the one without smell or taste, symbolic of the person without good deeds or knowledge. Still it is the arava and none of the others that play the central role on Hoshana Rabbah, teaching that every individual, even the seemingly less important play a crucial role in the fabric of our nation.

At the center of Shemini Atzeret is the prayer for geshem – rain. The mystics note that water by definition teaches the message of togetherness. There is no one molecule of water that can exist alone. Hence the Hebrew word for water is only in the plural – mayim.

All this reaches its crescendo on Simchat Torah, the holiday of ending and starting the Torah – much like a circle that knows no beginning or end. Thus on Simchat Torah we dance in circles – the knowledgeable with the less knowledgeable, the committed with the less committed, the secularists with the religious, those on the political right with those on the left. On Simchat Torah were all on the same plane. All together.

It's an important concept especially in these days when our people and our land face such serious challenges. The only way we can overcome is if we remain as one with everyone playing a role.

Years back, at the first Soviet Jewry conference in Brussels, a young Argentinean spoke of how lonely he felt as a Jew in Buenos Aires. In those days, the sixties, the fascists ruled Argentina; Hitler's picture could be seen everywhere. The young man went on to say that at the conference he began learning the Hebrew language. He learned that the smallest letter was the yud, or the pintele yid. But, he continued, if one writes a second yud near the first it spells Gods name. Two Jews together reflect the unity of God, and no matter how small each may be, together they can overcome everything.

That's what this young man felt at that conference – a sense of unity which made him believe that our people would prevail. And it's that sense of unity that we desperately need during these trying times.